About the Invention

Wendy Murphy designed and developed the WEEVAC 6 emergency evacuation stretcher for infants in 1989. It is the only stretcher in the world designed to carry six newborn babies at one time to safety. Fire resistant material and a foldable lightweight aluminum frame make the WEEVAC 6 strong, durable and highly reliable in an emergency situation. It is designed to be narrow so that it can be maneuvered through a stairwell. The three infant pockets are made from Mylar laminated vinyl fabric to assist in retaining body heat. Each pocket features Velcro straps that secure two newborns (from premature to full term).

Her first Weevac stretchers were made for the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. These stretchers have received considerable attention in the United States and other areas of the world where earthquakes and hurricanes are a way of life. WEEVAC 6 stretchers have been purchased by major hospitals across Canada and in places as far away as Honolulu.

The original infant evacuation stretcher line has been expanded to include three other stretcher products. "One idea came out of the other," she says. In 1989, some hospital administrators asked her why she didn't design a product for moving convalescent and aged patients. She started the drawings right there and by February, 1990, she had a patentable design for the WEEVAC TC (thermal carpet). Interest in her products has resulted in additional and unusual contract work for Wendy. She has designed a Marine Storage System now in use on Canadian Coast Guard rescue boats in Ontario. Under contract with the University of Alberta, she has created a special cover to retain warmth within a unique transport incubator called the S.A.I.N.T., which is designed to transport infants to hospital from remote northern areas. With the cover in place, the S.A.I.N.T. is the most heat and energy efficient transport incubator in the world today.

About the Inventor

At the time when Wendy Murphy developed the WEEVAC 6, she worked as a medical research technician in Toronto. While watching television coverage of the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, she realized that no appropriate evacuation stretchers existed for young children.

It took Wendy another two years to perfect the design and secure U.S. and Canadian patents. Murphy has had a lot of help getting her product off the ground. The Canadian Industrial Innovation Centre in Waterloo, Ontario offered general advice on marketing. The National Research Council (NRC) provided about $1,000 for more research, development and testing. The NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program funded one-half of the performance testing costs. Murphy also had assistance from the Federal Business Development Bank, CASE Counselling Service. "My CASE counsellor actually came up with the trademark 'WEEVAC.'"WEEVAC can be interpreted as 'We evacuate'; 'We evacuate wee ones'; and a third that Wendy shies away from, 'Wendy's evacuation stretchers.'

When Wendy got the first order for her Weevac 6 infant evacuation stretcher in 1987, she didn't celebrate. She panicked. "It wasn't that I didn't think I could do it," she says, "but manufacturing is a far cry from medical research." Once the initial shock wore off, Murphy didn't waste time worrying. "I thought, well I've been handed this job to do. How hard could it be?"

Wendy does all of the on-site demonstrations of her product personally. Because of her commitment to personal contact with her customers, she is facing some big decisions on the future of WEEVAC, and Wendy Murphy Enterprises Inc. "At this point I am still a one-woman operation, but I've managed to make a sale in every hospital I've walked into so far." A recent accident has made Wendy take a hard look at the way she operates her company. "After the accident, I realized that if I were no longer able to make the sales myself, WEEVAC would go out of business." Her objective is to find and hire agents to do the selling for her across the country.

Wendy has won three awards for the innovation of her products: from the National Research Council of Canada for outstanding innovation in medical device technology in 1991; the Manning Innovation Award in 1992; and the Sir Joseph Flavelle Award for Technical Innovation in 1992. WEEVAC hasn't made Murphy rich; sales of $150,000 means she's close to breaking even. But she is one of three Canadians, and the only woman, featured on the Discovery Channel series on inventors. Repeat broadcasts sometimes prompt calls from emergency preparedness coordinators.

But for Wendy, who would have been content to spend her life as a researcher, the more rewarding calls are those that will never earn her money - calls from other women inventors. "They'll say 'I saw you on TV. I have something, could you talk to me'," she says, "and by the time I finish talking to them they say 'you just made me want to go out and do it'."